Reviews, September 2016

Louisa the Poisoner —
Tanith Lee

Pity
poor Louisa, raised in March
Mire, a swamp “so dangerous that none but fools would venture into
it,” fostered by
a mad, witchy aunt, then cast out into an uncaring world. Her aunt
has tragically died in convulsions (after Louisa poisoned her). How
is one sad orphan, all alone in the world, to fend for herself?

Hospital Station —
James White
Sector General, book 1

First
published as short stories in
New
Worlds Magazine
,
James White’s
Sector
General
was
by far his most successful series.
Of the twenty-one novels and nine collections White published, twelve
were
Sector
General
books. 1962’s Hospital
Station
was the very first Sector
General
fix-up,
gathering short works first published in
New
Worlds.

Strategically
located midway between the rim of the parent galaxy and the densely
populated systems of the Greater Magellanic Cloud, Sector 12 General
Hospital took the resources of hundreds of civilized worlds to
create. Not a surprise, since its mission is to provide health care
to all beings of all kinds. Even the radioactive ones. Even the ones
unfamiliar to the Galactic Federation, races about which nothing is known.

Kozue Amano
Aqua, book 1

Now
for a change of pace from scenery-porn science fiction manga about
airplanes. Time for
Kozue
Amano’s
scenery-porn
science fiction manga about
gondolas:
Aqua! Specifically, 2001’s Volume One.

By
the opening years of the 24
th century, humans had terraformed Mars. Owing to a slight
miscalculation re the amount of ice present, 90% of Mars is
ocean-covered. The colonists have renamed Mars “Aqua” and
embraced the possibilities of a largely ocean-covered world.

Thomas the Rhymer —
Ellen Kushner

Ellen
Kushner’s 1990
Thomas
the Rhymer
is
a standalone reinterpretation of the
traditional
ballad.
It won both the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award.

Gavin
and wife Meg are odd friends for someone like Thomas. Gavin and Meg
live quiet lives on their farm, while Thomas is a wandering minstrel
who has, or so he claims, played at court. At first, Gavin and Meg
offered the stranger shelter, as good people would. Later, he becomes
something of an adopted son to the childless couple.

There
are many reasons why the farm holds such an attraction for Thomas,
not least of which is young Elspeth, who lives on a nearby farm.

Colonies in Space —
T.A.Heppenheimer

T. A. Heppenheimer’s Colonies in Space is just one of the many Disco Era books and articles published proposing that the Next Big Step for humans in space would not be settlements on Mars or the Moon, but rather grand space stations. The idea was very popular, at least until reality ensued.

These
days, Heppenheimer may be remembered as the spoilsport who pointed
out that Bussard
ramjets
are far more effective at dissipating energy than they are at
generating it (which is to say, they’re not propulsion systems but
brakes). Yet he too was a space colony enthusiast. I remember his
book fondly. What I cannot do is resolve the teeny-tiny font in the
paperback edition,

So
it was with great glee that I discovered that the National Space
Society has made the work available online for free. I like free!
It’s even better than cheap!

Heroine Complex —
Sarah Kuhn
Heroine Complex, book 1

Heroine
Complex
is Sarah Kuhn’s debut novel.

An
army of demons invaded San Francisco, but turned out to be somewhat
fragile; they all died almost as soon as they arrived in our
dimension (shades of H. G. Wells
The
War of the Worlds
).
Ever since the failed invasion, San Francisco has endured several
small scale incursions … but those attacks are nothing that
dedicated volunteers cannot handle.

A Bed of Earth —
Tanith Lee
The Secret Books of Venus, book 3

2002’s
A
Bed of Earth is the third novel in Tanith Lee’s The
Secret Books of Venus.

A
few yards of dirt in a Venus graveyard is all it took to trigger the
long-running feud between the powerful della Scorpia and Barbaron
clans. To surrender that narrow patch of land would show weakness and
betray the family honour. Better bloodshed and death than dishonour!

Betrothed
to Lord Ciara, 14-year-old Merelda della Scorpia prefers the dashing
musician Lorenzo. The betrothal serves her grasping family’s goals,
but eloping with Lorenzo serves Meralda’s heart. There is no real
question which option the naive teen will choose.

Alas
for Merelda, intercepting the two lovers and handing them over to
vindictive, malevolent Lord Ciara serves Andrea Barbaron’s sense of
comic malice.

Lorenzo
does not long survive Lord Ciara’s hospitality. Merelda does; Lord
Ciara is unwilling to settle for simply killing her; he prefers a
more perverse vengeance. Merelda is alive when Lord Ciara sends her
away from Eel Island, but … nobody ever sees her again. Alive?
Dead? Alive but writhing in torment? No living person knows.

Cyteen —
C. J. Cherryh
Cyteen, book 1

Grandmaster
C. J. Cherryh’s 1988
Cyteen
is
arguably the magnum opus of her
Alliance-Union
novels. Together with its 2009 sequel Regenesis,
Cyteen
gives
fans their most detailed look at Union, the first system-spanning
nation independent of Earth.

Ariane
Emory is a Special, one of a handful of geniuses who stand out even
in a polity established by the brightest of Earth’s star-faring
bright. She is one of the people who have made Union what it is: a
dystopic state run by interlocking self-selected oligarchies to whom
the phrase “checks and balances” is a joke. It is a galactic
power utterly dependent on mass-produced, mind-controlled slaves. For
Emory, secure in her power as head of the research facility Reseune,
life is sweet.

As
her frozen corpse proves, even a sweet life can come to an
unexpected, abrupt end.

The Mercenary —
Jerry Pournelle

1977’s
The
Mercenary
is
a fix-up. It comprises three Jerry Pournelle stories:
Peace with Honor (1971),
The Mercenary
(1972), and Sword
and Scepter
(1973). These are among the earliest of Pournelle’s stories1.
They must have impressed readers because
The
Mercenary
was
nominated for Best Novella (losing to Le Guin’s
The
Word for World is Forest
)
while Pournelle himself won the very first John W. Campbell Award for
Best New Writer.

The
Second Cold War ended with the formation of the CoDominium in the
1990s. The Soviet and American forces dominate the Earth. Thanks to
the timely development of the Alderson Drive, those who object too
loudly or who are simply surplus to needs can be shipped out to the
interstellar colonies.

It’s
not a just system but it works. Or rather, it worked. Now
nationalists across the planet want to bring it down and with it,
civilization on Earth.

Saint Fire —
Tanith Lee
The Secret Books of Venus, book 2

1999’s
Saint
Fire
is the second novel in Tanith Lee’s The
Secret Books of Venus.

If
it were not for the Council of the Lamb, the masses who call Ve Nara
home might waste their lives on love and pleasure. Ever vigilant, the
Council diligently guides their charges towards self-denial and
suffering, God’s chosen path for mortal humans. The Council’s
grip on Ve Nara seems unbreakable, save for two minor details:

The
looming war with Jurneia, a country of heretics too blind to see
their false god is but a mockery of the one true God, fools who
think it’s the Christian God who is false. Whatever the truth or
falsity of Jurneia’s theology, their vast fleet is all too real.

Going Dark —
Linda Nagata
Red, book 3

2015’s
Going
Dark
is
the third and final volume in Linda Nagata’s
Red
Trilogy.

As
far as the world is concerned, James Shelly died when his space plane
was blown out of the sky. But he isn’t dead; he’s just gone
undercover. He’s a member of ETM Strike Squad 7-1, an elite strike
force formed to combat existential threats.

7-1
is beyond covert, not listed in any official records, staffed by the
officially dead, funded with a fortune stolen from a mad billionaire.
Missions are selected by the enigmatic Red. In theory, all of them
involve crises that could end human civilization. But there is a catch:

The
Red is not infallible. It is not all powerful. It is not even human.

Transferral —
Kate Blair

2016’s
Transferral
is
a debut novel from Canadian-by-choice author Kate Blair. It is not
listed as such on her ISFDB entry because she does not
have
an
ISFDB entry—someone should get on that—but her
website
confirms
the info.

The
weed of crime may bear bitter fruit in our world but in
sixteen-year-old Talia’s world, crime produces endless snotty
hankies. Once science provided the means to move diseases from one
human to another, it didn’t take long for lawmakers to see that
this could be a perfect tool to reward decent citizens while
punishing lawbreakers. Break a minor law and receive some law-abiding
citizen’s cold. Break a major crime and say hello to
necrotising
fasciitis.

Talia,
herself a survivor of a brutal crime that left her sister and mother
dead, has no doubts about the morality of the transferral system of
punishment. What could possibly be wrong with making sure good things
happen to good people by ensuring that bad things happen to bad people?

Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship —
George Dyson

George
Dyson’s 2003
Project
Orion:
The
True Story of the Atomic Spaceship
is
the biography of an atomic rocket that never was. Strike that,
the
atomic
rocket that never was. Atomic rockets like NERVA or DUMBO may have
used the power of the atom, but their approach was not so very
different from conventional chemical rockets and their performance
not so much better.
Orion
promised
delta vees more than an order of magnitude better than NERVA at its
best.

All
it asked in return for its astounding performance was a studied
tolerance for proximity to nuclear explosions. Repeated explosions.

Dying of the Light —
George R.R. Martin

1977’s
Dying
of the Light was
George R. R. Martin’s first novel. While this novel is set in the
same Manrealm as a number of Martin’s other stories1,
this is a standalone. You don’t need to have read the other works
to understand this one. This isn’t volume five of some interminable
fantasy series.

Centuries
after the collapse of the Federal Empire, the human worlds are still
recovering. Fourteen of the more isolated, backward worlds
collaborated on an ambitious project: terraforming the rogue world
Worlorn as it passes by the giant star Fat Satan.

By
the time Dirk
t’Larien arrives on Worlorn, hoping to help a former lover, Gwen
Delvano, Worlorn’s Festival is over. Its path will take it past Fat
Satan and back into the lightless interstellar depths. All life on
the world is doomed.

Hitoshi Ashinano
Kabu no Isaki, book 1

Hitoshi
Ashinano’s
Kabu
no Isaki—Isaki of the Cub—
was
serialized between 2007 and 2013 and subsequently collected into six
volumes. I am unaware of a North American edition. Which minor fact
did not deter the intrepid reviewer.

At
first glance, not much has changed in the (unspecified number of)
years between our era and young Isaki’s. People still need to work,
which means they need some means to get to work. For Isaki, work and
transportation are one and the same. Neighbor Shiro allows Isaki the
use of her aged but still reliable Piper Cub airplane. In return,
Isaki uses the plane to run errands for Shiro.

Red Unicorn —
Tanith Lee
Unicorn, book 3

1997’s
Red
Unicorn is
the third and final volume in Tanith Lee’s
Unicorn series.

Poor
Tanaquil! In the previous volume, she fell in love with Honj. Because
he is the paramour of Tanaquil’s half-sister Lizra, he is forever out
of reach. Heartbroken, she returns to her mother Jaive’s isolated
home, only to discover that an unexpected romance has ruined life
there as well.

No Rest for the Wicked —
Kate Ashwin
Widdershins, book 2

Widdershins:
No Rest for the Wicked is the second arc in Kate Ashwin’s ongoing webcomic. No
Rest for the Wicked was published in 82 installments from March 12, 2012 to October 5, 2012.

Detained
by police after a friendly altercation at a local pub, Jack O’Malley
and his amiable German chum Wolfe face either prison term or—this
being a fantasy England with its own Bloody Code—execution. Jack
has a very special talent and that makes him potentially valuable to
Councilwoman Fairbairn. Valuable enough to buy both Jack and Wolfe
out of prison.

Of
course, a contract with the councilwoman is involved but if contracts
ever said anything important, O’Malley would have learned to read.

Children of the Atom —
Wilmar H. Shiras

Tell
me if you’ve heard this story before: a well-meaning man founds a
school for gifted youngsters. The gifted youngsters are mutants,
children of the atom, each with their own gifts. They are mutants to
whom the world will react with fear and anger when their existence is revealed.

Like
most well-read SFF fans, I’d
heard of Wilmar H. Shiras’ 1953 classic Children
of the Atom
.
I had a vague idea what later works
plagiarized … were inspired by Shiras’ collection. I had never actually read
Children until I discovered that an ebook edition had been published. Knowing
when the original text was written, where it was published, and the
works it inspired, I thought I had a pretty good idea how the plot
had to play out.

I
was wrong.

There
will be spoilers.

By
1973, the 1959 accident that left the staff of an atomic reactor
dying of radiation poisoning is long forgotten. When child
psychologist Peter Welles is asked to examine fourteen-year-old Tim,
the accident seems to have no relevance to his patient. At a first
glance, Tim seems like a perfectly normal young boy. At second
glance, it becomes clear that Tim is concealing a great secret. He
believes that if anyone were to learn his secret, he would become a pariah.

The Universe Between —
Alan E. Nourse

Alan
E. Nourse’s 1965 The
Universe Between is
a fix-up of two novelettes published in 1951: High
Threshold and
The
Universe Between.

Ambitious
cryogenics research has created an incomprehensible thing
in
the middle of the lab. Attempts to understand it have killed three
men and put two more in the madhouse. Determined to unravel the
mystery, Dr. John McEvoy has turned to the Hoffman Center. Perhaps
the Center can provide a volunteer resilient enough to survive the
thing (which may be a hypercube).

Faces Under Water —
Tanith Lee
The Secret Books of Venus, book 1

1998’s Faces Under Water is the first volume in Tanith Lee’s Secret Books of Venus series.

Having
ragequit his former life as a pampered aristocrat, Furian makes a
scanty living by running errands for alchemist
Schaachen.
A hunt for salvageable bodies in Venus’ canals turns up something
unexpected: a mask of unparalleled quality.

Patema Inverted —
Yasuhiro Yoshiura

I
stumbled across Yasuhiro Yoshiura 2013’s animated film
Patema
Inverted
by accident. An image search for something else turned up Patema
Inverted
’s
eyecatching cover. As has been well-established, I am a sucker for a
pretty cover.

Patema
yearns to find a world beyond the tunnels and corridors she grew up
in. One careless step later, and she plummets down into an endless
abyss. Luckily for Patema, high school student Age is in the right
place at the right time to prevent Patema from falling up into the
endless sky.